Linda Hoye's Blog, page 63

Aromatherapy

I carry baby tomato plants in a small box on my lap while Gerry drives to the community garden. My hands brush across their leaves. The scent of hope wafts from them. The plants have been growing in my laundry room since I dropped tiny seeds into pots in early April, unmotivated, with barely enough

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Shopping in the Time of Corona

One morning I stand in line, appropriately distanced from the woman in front of me and hoping the person behind me is extending the same courtesy, waiting to get into the garden center. I arrived a few minutes past opening time and there was already a lineup. Plants and flowers are means to self-care, I tell

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Garden Magic

I climb out of the car, and walk toward my community garden plot with my eyes are trained on the plot next to mine. A young man, hair pulled back in a ponytail, and a little girl—maybe two-years-old—are in it. I get closer and see they’re both barefoot, and I’m thrilled by the ordinary extraordinariness

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Antidote

Today I’m going to give myself the gift of doing “want to do” things rather than “have to do” things. An antidote to a funky afternoon and evening when it seemed the weight was too heavy. I’ll toss seeds in the ground in my garden, dig in flower pots at home, and make a loose plan.

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Unplugged

Over the course of one twenty-four-hour period, between the two of us, five Zoom calls take place in our home. Necessary, some of them; productive, a few of them; but when I realize what has crept into this sanctuary I want to scream “Stop!” How easily busyness invades our space before we even realize it’s

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Glory

The sun rises and kisses the trees with light so golden it makes me believe in magic. And the hills across the valley are spring-green. And purple lilac buds grow plump. And yesterday morning I saw, too many to count, mountain bluebirds flit back and forth from the budding Virginia creeper to the lawn and back

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Step Out Onto My Balcony!

I’m a checklist person through and through. Sometime late last year I began drafting a project plan for launching The Presence of Absence to capture all the little details I needed to tend to before releasing my baby out into the world. I have been tweaking it, making adjustments, and getting things done but I

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Love in the Time of Corona

Today is our wedding anniversary. Twenty-one years ago today, Gerry and I stood at the front of a small church and vowed to love one another through good and less-than-good times. One might look at these days as a batch of those not so good ones. But, you know, we’ve got good food in our

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Resolve

I wake from a dream in which someone stands in my bedroom doorway, tells me she feels like she’s getting the flu, and then comes and sits in the edge of my bed to chat. My thoughts upon waking go something like this. No. I’m not allowing this pandemic to enter my dreams and steal

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Unbusy

I’ve been knocked off balance. I suspect most of us have. I’m comfortable in solitude and, even before the pandemic, am happy to spend most of my time at home but it’s different now. There’s that constant hum in the back of my mind and a measure of fear over the unknown. There’s concern for

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